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1.06.2015

What A Year Can Do

Winter 2014

After our first 8 month trip in 2012, we decided we would give the farm life one more year. Spend a year really thinking about why we loved living in Iowa so much, and if at the end of that year, we were still dissatisfied we would sell the place and move on. As we approached the one year mark, we knew things were not really working.

We thought staying on the farm would be the right thing to do for Ciara and Johnny, or the easiest for us because of their special needs. Easy does not equate happy. What we discovered was that our sanity was still in question, and the Hallalluha moments we hoped for with Ciara and Johnny never happened.

Our quality of life did not get a whole lot better or worse - it was what it was. All we were doing was trying to get back to what we had on the road but in a stick home. As easy as that might seem to be, it just wasn't happening for us.

John and I did not have that much more real alone time than we did on the road.

Ciara made just as many developmental gains on the road as she did in school for a whole year.

Johnny seems to be worse behaviorally since being in school.

The whole family spent too much time wish'n for better days.

And since we are not ones to wish our life away, it became quite obvious we needed to make some hard choices, give up some of the things we loved, and move on to bigger and better things.

The goats.

The chickens.

The daily visits from friends.

Aldi.

Walking the farm.

Weekly therepy appointments.

At times it seemed impossible to let go of what we had. The the crab in the bucket, knowing it needs to get out but never quite making it out before another crab pulled in back down. I remember hoping and praying that I wouldn't regret our decision. We began counting the days until school was out and the day we were heading out - it made us laugh and get the gitters. Our old trip calendar became our daily source of excitement.

Now 4 months later, we rarely every think about the farm. We do miss our friends but facebook, skype, youtube, and e-mail has been a wonderful way to keep in touch. We are also making new friends along the way and meeting up with old friends living someplace other than Iowa. And now that year of emotional turbulance takes real effort to recall. We truely are a rambling family, it is in our blood, and I can't wait to see where it leads us this year.